I will love again

Part 5 - Spending the night

He started to laugh the very moment she stepped out of the bathroom.

"What's so funny?", she asked and instantly he could see her whole body tense.

He stood up from the armchair he had been sitting on, while he tried to read an article in a gossip magazine he had brought from the lobby. But he could't focus, because his thoughts kept wandering off, imagining what she might wear at a warm summer night. Seeing her now in one off her turtle neck shirts, as well as a pair of long, blue leggings with little white flowers, just set him off, knowing too well, that she tried to look as innocent and not hot as possible.

"Y-y-your", he was still gasping for air from his fit of laughter, "your actual ch-choice of nightwear o-on a w-w-warm midsummer n-night", he stammered out between his laughs.

"Sir?" She knew what he meant, yet she still didn't know how to deal with everything that had happened so fast in just a single day.

Gabriel's laughter died in the spot. He tilted his head with a questioning look.

"Really? I thought we were past calling me Sir!", he uttered.

"Oh, I.....I am....sorry. I didn't mean too---it was just...the habit", she ranted, while her face turned pink and she quickly looked outside the window to cover her blush. She heard his steps on the floor, as he approached her and closed her eyes, holding on to the desk, that stood under the window board.

She wasn't sure, what he was up to, he usually acted very different. She had longed for his touch and his kiss for years now, but she always knew, that there wasn't a chance for them. She could already imagine, what the tabloids and magazines and blogs would say about her. There had been rumours before, about her being nothing but a gold digger, who wanted his wife out of the way, and had done something to her. Others had called her a slut, who had only gotten this sought-after position, because she had slept with him. Yet it wasn't her reputation she was worried about.

Gabriel had stopped so close behind her, that she could feel his chest on her back. And even if she wanted nothing more, than to lean back against him, she made a quick step forward, to slip out of the situation, by dodging him on the right side. The designer though, had expected her to try to avoid him and caught her by the waist with both arms.

The assistant gasped. Not only out of shock. Mostly it was the feeling that started to built inside her stomach, like the feeling she knew from a fast drop or a roller coaster ride. She liked the way he was holding her, how his body pressed against hers, making her feel enveloped in his protective warmth. She let her head hang low, as she believed deep inside, they could never be together for real.

The designer bent down, to place his chin in the crook of her neck, hugging her even tighter, his cheek against hers. His voice was soft and a little rasp, when he pleaded:

"Please, Nathalie, don't push me away. You have risked everything for my obsession, to revive my dead wife. You were willing to sacrifice your own life. Whatever the future will bring, give me at least the chance to make it up to you. Let me be a friend, you can lean on, if you don't feel more than that. I wished....No. I won't ask that from you."

He sighed and stared out of the window, while he kept his hold on her.

"What?"

"You mean, what I won't ask from you?"

He felt her slight nod on his cheek.

"What will you not ask from me and why? I was willing to die for you, what might be left, that you can't ask from me?", she sounded bitter and hopeless as she spoke.

He stiffened.

"I never a..", Gabriel started but was interrupted.

"I know that you never asked me to, but still I would have done it, so tell me, what could you ask from me, that I wouldn't give you? And why wouldn't you ask? Out of guilt?"